DCI partners at PASIC, part 5

by
Drum Corps International

Recently, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) was held in Louisville, Ky. A number of Drum Corps International's partners were in exhibit at the event. This is part five about the new products that have been introduced by these partners over the past year.
Earlier in this series we've taken a look at several percussion equipment manufactures. Today, let's taken a look at music notation software from Sibelius.
Fast becoming the industry standard for music notation in this country, Sibelius has upped the ante with Sibelius 3. This is an easy-to-use update that is making converts among many drum corps arrangers, most recently Wayne Downey.
Musicians not into music notation should find Sibelius 3 easy to learn and easy to use. Everything is a simple click and edit, as opposed to more complex notation software that requires the user to utilize special modes and tools. Everything on the computer screen is editable without the use of the archaic modes and tools. The user can write notations and put in articulations and other markings with lifting their hands off the computer keyboard.
Sibelius 3 is extremely intuitive. It knows what the user wants to do, allowing the arranger or composer of the music to create music quicker than ever before possible.
A built-in timer updates the timing of the selection whenever the tempo is changed or measures are added or subtracted, so corps and marching band staffs know how long each selection is when planning the show.
Sibelius 3 also makes it easy to create percussion scores and play back the scores with realistic percussion sounds. The program is seamlessly compatible with Jim Casella's Tap Space Virtual Drumline, which itself ships with Sibelius templates and sound files. Sibelius allows users to use Virtual Drumline easily, utilizing the sampled sounds from the Santa Clara Vanguard drumline to create realistic-sounding drum features, even down to hearing the differences between right hand and left hand strokes and front and back bass drum heads.
The Virtual Drumline samples are played through a variety of third party sample-playback software packages, helping produce the realistic sounds of the field ensemble.